Same difference

One of the most embarrassing faux pas a person can commit in nerd circles is to confuse Star Trek and Star Wars because there is some kind of supposed rivalry between the two because of the similarities in title and that they're both set in space. But what I'm asking are they that different? Are they, really?

"Them's fighting words."

-gatekeepy nerds

The Tarantino Trek movie is evidently
not happening? Which I'm not mad about. 

I know, I know, we just talked about a new Star Wars movie announcement, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the announcement yet another Star Trek movie. Yeah, another, other, Star Trek movie. Brining the total of announced, but as yet not started Trek movies to four? So this is the not the Picard movie Sir Patrick Stewart has been talking about, and it's the Quentin Tarantino thing, nor is it Star Trek 4: This Time No Whales, although it is evidently set in the alternate timeline established in the J. J. Abrams movies which is confusing, but we'll get to that. 

"I mean, we're right here..."

-the cast of Star Trek's 

origin story

This is a prequel set "decades before" the 2009 movie and serves as an origin story. An origin story to a movie that was already an origin story for Star Trek which, for those keeping score, already has an origin story. Which, isn't a problem for me, I'll see whatever they crank out, but do you see what I mean by confusing? Here, allow me to get pedantic: the 2009 movie set up a parallel timeline which allowed J. J. Abrams to make changes to established canon and the look of the Star Trek universe without upsetting the fans, which it 100% did anyway, even if the movie was pretty fun. Still with me?

Pictured: That time Robert Zemeckis
invented the multiverse and made movies
needlessly more complicated forever. 

What's confusing to people like me (who maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of a fictional narrative universe instead of having a personality), is that if it's set "decades before" the events of that movie, then it sounds like it's set in the Prime timeline and not the new, sexier parallel timeline where Spock cries a lot and makes out with Uhura. But whatever, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it's to be directed by Toby Haynes who also directed a bunch of Star Wars: Andor episodes. 

As with any Abrams joint, you'll want to
be sure not to look directly at the movie.

And this won't even be the first time the two series had a director in common. J. J. Abrams directed the aforementioned 2009 Star Trek, and in doing so kind of remade Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (farm boy with a magic destiny and no dad versus a bad guy with planet killing super-weapon) before jumping over to Disney and directing Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens...which is also basically Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. But the similarities don't end there.

Above: the mercifully not canon time the crew
of the Enterprise teamed up with the X-Men.

Both Star Wars and Star Trek consist of both live action and animated television series, including some specifically aimed at younger audiences (Star Wars: Resistance, Star Trek: Prodigy). Both have revisited characters decades after their previous appearances. Both have roughly the same number of theatrically released films (twelve each if you include The Clone Wars movie). Both have extensive tie-in material including books and comic books and both have rendered large portions of their respective expanded universes non-canonical. 

They've even started to look alike. Star Trek Discovery had a very Star Wars-y space battle in the Season 2 finale, and Ashoka opened with the crew of a New Republic spaceship doing a star trek. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that the increasing number of similarities between the two Star things, Trek and Wars, along with the way they kind of influence each other, makes confusing them a lot less worthy of ridicule. 

Look at 'em all, hailing vessels, scanning for
life forms, just generally trekking...through the stars.